Modern farmers harvest wheat and other crops using multiple harvesters working together in one field. A common scenario is that the owner of the farm drives one harvester while a hired hand drives another. The owner, being highly motivated by the success or failure of his farm, tries hard to operate his machine properly and to understand and use all of its features. In particular, the owner understands how to calibrate his harvester's yield monitoring system to obtain accurate crop yield data. Farming is a data intensive business and knowing precisely how one's crops are performing is crucial to maximizing profit.
The hired hand is less likely to know or care as much as his boss about yield monitoring and other advanced harvester features. He may misunderstand, forget or even ignore instructions for running test strips before working a field, for example. He is more likely to harvest with a poorly calibrated yield monitor and accumulate inaccurate yield data.
Consider what happens when the owner and the hired hand harvest a field by taking alternate rows as shown in FIG. 1. The owner, in harvester A, works rows marked “A”. Meanwhile, his help, in harvester B, works rows marked “B”. After the day's work is done, the owner plots yield data on his computer using yield monitoring software and sees . . . stripes!
A stripe (i.e. a long narrow band or strip, typically of the same width throughout its length, differing in color from the surface or either side of it) pattern appears in the yield data because of inconsistent calibration between yield monitors on harvester A and B.
This is unsatisfactory to the owner. Although a stripe pattern could, in limited circumstances, be accurate (e.g. two varieties of a row crop planted in alternating rows), it is much more likely, especially with broadacre crops, to be the result of inconsistent yield monitor calibration. Stripes are an annoying distraction to say the least. They obscure the visual display of yield data that would otherwise show a farmer where his field may be in trouble from too little fertilizer, too much water, or other problems.
What are needed are systems and methods to fix the yield stripe problem.